Local Bodies’ Impact on Public Libraries: Panchayats and Municipalities in India

When a young person in a small village clears a competitive exam after months of preparation, the credit often goes to a quiet room of books set up by the local gram panchayat. Across the country, the institutions closest to ordinary people, the panchayats in villages and municipalities in towns and cities, have quietly become some of the most important builders of public library services. They decide where a reading room comes up, who staffs it, and whether it survives. Understanding how these local bodies function is essential to understanding how library services actually reach the grassroots.

Why local bodies matter for libraries 🔗

A public library system can be designed beautifully on paper at the state level, but it only becomes real when someone on the ground builds and runs it. That someone is usually a local body. Local self-government gained firm constitutional recognition through the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments of 1992, which institutionalised Panchayati Raj Institutions in rural areas and Urban Local Bodies in urban regions, bringing governance closer to the people.

The logic behind this was simple. Decisions about community needs, including reading and study facilities, are best taken by those who live with the consequences. The proximity of decision-makers to beneficiaries improves how schemes are targeted and run. For libraries, this means a panchayat can decide that an unused classroom should become a study hall, or a municipality can decide that a ward needs a branch library. These are decisions a distant state department rarely makes well.

Role of panchayats in rural areas 🔗

The 73rd Amendment added Part IX to the Constitution and gave Panchayati Raj Institutions constitutional status, mandating regular elections, reserving seats for marginalised groups, and creating state election and finance commissions. It also created a uniform three-tier structure: the gram panchayat at the village level, an intermediate panchayat at the block level, and the zila parishad at the district level.

The Eleventh Schedule and libraries 🔗

The most important link between panchayats and libraries lies in the Eleventh Schedule, which was added by the 73rd Amendment and lists 29 subjects that states can devolve to panchayats. Among these 29 subjects, alongside agriculture, drinking water, roads, and rural electrification, sits one entry that concerns us directly: libraries are explicitly listed as a panchayat subject, placed next to education, adult and non-formal education, and cultural activities.

This placement is significant. It means the Constitution itself recognises that running rural libraries is a legitimate function of village governance, not an afterthought. A panchayat that sets up a reading room is not stepping outside its role; it is performing a duty the Constitution anticipated.

How much power actually reaches the village 🔗

There is an important catch. The Eleventh Schedule lists subjects that states can transfer, but the actual devolution of these functions varies significantly across states. States like Kerala and West Bengal have devolved most functions to panchayats, while others have been reluctant to part with control. So whether a panchayat can genuinely run libraries depends heavily on how seriously its state government took the spirit of the amendment.

This gap between constitutional promise and ground reality is one of the central challenges in rural library development. Panchayati Raj Institutions continue to face problems such as incomplete transfer of functions, funds, and staff, along with bureaucratic control. A panchayat may have the legal right to maintain a library but lack the money or trained personnel to do so.

Municipalities and the urban side 🔗

For towns and cities, the parallel reform was the 74th Amendment, which created Part IX-A of the Constitution and gave municipalities constitutional status. It recognised three categories of urban local bodies based on population and character: the Nagar Panchayat for areas transitioning from rural to urban, the Municipal Council for smaller urban areas, and the Municipal Corporation for larger cities.

The Twelfth Schedule 🔗

Just as panchayats got the Eleventh Schedule, municipalities received the Twelfth Schedule, which lists eighteen functions including urban planning, water supply, sanitation, public health, and roads. Libraries are not named as a separate entry in the Twelfth Schedule in the way they are in the Eleventh, but municipalities have long run libraries under their broader responsibilities for education and cultural development, and many do so under separate state public library legislation rather than the schedule alone.

The 74th Amendment also focused on fiscal empowerment. It allowed municipalities to collect taxes, user charges, and fees, and required states to share revenue with urban bodies through State Finance Commissions. This financial base is what allows a municipal corporation to maintain branch libraries across its wards, something a cash-strapped body simply cannot sustain.

How libraries are funded through local bodies 🔗

Constitutional recognition is one thing; money is another. The mechanism that historically tied libraries to local bodies most tightly is the library cess, a small surcharge collected through local taxes and earmarked for libraries.

The library cess model 🔗

The pioneer here was the Madras Public Libraries Act of 1948, the first library legislation enacted in independent India, shaped by the work of S. R. Ranganathan and the Madras Library Association. Now known as the Tamil Nadu Public Libraries Act, it requires every Local Library Authority to levy a library cess as a surcharge on property tax or house tax. Crucially, the cess is collected by the local body itself: by the corporation in the city, by the municipal council in a municipal area, and historically by the panchayat or district board elsewhere.

This model spread. The Karnataka Public Libraries Act of 1965 is regarded as one of the most balanced, levying a broad-based cess, while the Kerala Public Libraries Act of 1989 is notable for its decentralised, three-tier structure of elected councils. In each case, the local body is the channel through which library funds are raised and spent.

State legislation and the local body 🔗

Several states have passed dedicated public library acts that formally hand library duties to local institutions. The Haryana Public Libraries Act of 1989, for instance, provides for the establishment, maintenance, and development of public libraries and even envisages a Panchayat Library Committee for each village library, with its constitution and functions laid down by the concerned District Library Committee. This shows how state law can deliberately build the panchayat into the management of a village library.

Growth and development of libraries through local bodies 🔗

The real story of grassroots library development in recent years has been written by panchayats and municipalities acting on the ground, often spurred by a single powerful motivation: helping local youth prepare for competitive examinations.

The Haryana panchayat library push 🔗

Haryana offers one of the clearest recent examples. In 2020 the state government approved a project to set up panchayat libraries under the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, with the Higher Education Department as the nodal department and a directive to involve all panchayat members in the process. The scheme later scaled up dramatically: the State Panchayat Department announced plans to set up 1,000 digital libraries in villages, with buildings identified across the state and an aim to eventually cover all of its roughly 6,225 villages. These libraries are equipped with internet, computers, books, magazines, and digital display boards.

The impact is visible in individual villages. In one district, a small community library built through the efforts of the local gram panchayat became a support system for unemployed youths, and after a year all 40 students who studied there regularly cleared the Common Eligibility Test. In another district, the administration announced that villages with adequate gram panchayat funds would be considered for libraries under a unified model, signalling how panchayat finances directly determine whether a library appears.

Karnataka’s Arivu Centres 🔗

Karnataka shows how panchayat libraries can evolve into something larger. The state began setting up 6,599 new village libraries modelled on the Arivu Centres of gram panchayats, funded through a central capital investment scheme. These centres started as simple libraries before being transformed with digital tools, and officials note they are turning into community spaces where people prepare for and clear teacher eligibility and other competitive exams. The plan would give Karnataka over 12,500 rural libraries, deeply decentralised and placed in available spaces such as unused classrooms and old panchayat buildings.

Why the grassroots model works 🔗

The common thread across these examples is that local bodies succeed because they are close to the need. A gram panchayat knows which building is vacant, which youth lack a quiet place to study, and which exams matter locally. By converting community assets into reading rooms and staffing them, sometimes with retired officials or local educators, panchayats and municipalities deliver a service that feels designed for the community rather than imposed on it. This is the practical meaning of decentralisation: allowing local communities to identify their own needs and implement solutions through elected institutions.

The challenges that remain 🔗

The picture is not uniformly bright. Field studies of local self-governance reveal serious implementation gaps, weak grievance redressal, and the need for stronger accountability. In rural areas specifically, digital libraries often lack reliable internet connectivity and digital literacy remains low, which undermines the very digital reading rooms states are eager to build. Funding shortfalls, dependence on whether a state has truly devolved the library function, and the difficulty of retaining trained librarians all continue to limit how far local bodies can take library development. Sustaining a library, not just inaugurating one, is the harder task.

What do you think? 🔗

If panchayats and municipalities are the bodies closest to readers, should library functions be fully and uniformly devolved to them across every state, or does that risk leaving poorer local bodies with libraries they cannot afford to maintain? And as rural libraries increasingly go digital, how should local bodies balance the appeal of computers and the internet against the basic, dependable value of books on a shelf?

References

1. https://graam.org.in/73rd-and-74th-constitutional-amendments-how-local-self-governance-works-on-the-ground/
2. https://www.drishtijudiciary.com/to-the-point/ttp-constitution-of-india/73rd-and-74th-constitutional-amendment-acts
3. https://polsci.institute/state-politics-india/empowering-rural-india-73rd-amendment-act/
4. https://www.britannica.com/topic/panchayati-raj
5. https://sociology.institute/india-democracy-development/73rd-74th-amendments-indian-local-governance/
6. https://www.apnilaw.com/upsc/indian-constitution/73rd-and-74th-amendment/
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madras_Public_Libraries_Act
8. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/35819688/
9. https://www.lisquiz.com/2025/09/library-legislation-in-india.html
10. https://www.latestlaws.com/bare-acts/state-acts-rules/haryana-state-laws/haryana-public-library-act-1989/
11. https://s4.collegedunia.com/news/haryana-cm-nods-for-establishment-of-panchayat-libraries-under-gram-swaraj-abhiyan-alertid-29791
12. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/haryana/panchayat-dept-to-set-up-1-000-digital-libraries-in-rural-areas-386439
13. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/haryana/village-library-powers-dreams-40-youths-clear-cet/
14. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/haryana/libraries-to-be-established-across-karnal-under-unified-model-dc/
15. https://www.deccanherald.com/india/karnataka/new-rural-libraries-books-procured-computers-next-2-3515077